Sorry About That

by Rose David


So, I guess by now you've noticed that you're on my blog.

I mean, maybe not Literally You.

Well, maybe not.

But if it is, I just want to say... Well...

"Sorry" just doesn't cut it in some situations, does it? Because what are apologies, really, besides an acknowledgement that you've done wrong and a vow to do better in the future?

But let's be real. I'll probably do this again.

You would think I'd at least know how to cover my tracks, but no.


There was one time when I made the mistake of leaving my browser window up at work. I was reading, ahem, my very own blog. I know how that looks. But sometimes, during my day job, I just like to remind myself that I'm actually a writer in disguise, instead of a full-time barista with a really boring hobby.

I left work in a hurry and didn't close the browser window on our shared computer. Which was too bad, because I had just posted a cartoon about how a few of the girls I worked with were entitled twits who had no idea what it was like to be a real adult.

Real meaning... someone who cartoons and dropped out of graduate school, I guessed.

The cartoon referred in a vague way to everyone, but the star of it all was a college student named Carrie, whose white-girl dreadlocks and habit of disappearing on impromptu road-trips had simultaneously intrigued and annoyed me.

I realized my faux-pas when, hours later, a sense of alarm caught me right in the gut.

By then, it was too late to do anything about it. Surely, I thought, they couldn't have seen anything. If so, wouldn't I have heard something by now? Some irate text or at least a vague-but-pointed Facebook rant?

I told myself to forget about it, and I did, sort of. With this kind of thing, you don't really forget; you just tuck it away like an unpaid bill, knowing you'll have to deal with it eventually.

My uppance came a few weeks later, when one of the girls, Mary, casually mentioned my cartoon.

"Oh, last week I showed Carrie that funny comic you drew about her," she said with (I swear) not a hint of malice in her voice. "We thought it was really hilarious."

"Why, thank you," I said.

Meanwhile, my mind was sprinting hard, reviewing Cassie's behavior toward me for the past seven days. Had she been distant, cold, angry?

No. Not at all. I mean, as far as I could tell.

"Carrie was kind of upset at first," Mary continued, "but we told her it was just a cartoon and she was like, 'Yeah, whatever, okay' and we just kind of forgot about it."

Indeed.

The next time Mary's boyfriend came in, he mentioned how funny my cartoons were, and I felt compelled to mention that it wasn't Carrie I was making fun of. Oh, no, no. It was...

"Her image. An idea of her. A projection of how frustrating entitlement and consumerism can be." And because I didn't think I could really pull off the artistic explanation, I also added, "Plus, she has the funnest hair to draw. So. You know."

Mary's boyfriend nodded sagely. He got it. He understood.

And I guess, so did Cassie.

Did she somehow understand that I had simply been blowing off steam? And that, instead of just venting to my friends the way normal people do, I like to draw about it then post my results on the internet?

Maybe.

Maybe she's just a really understanding person, capable of sensing the intent behind a piece of art.

Maybe.

The whole thing wasn't nearly as unpleasant as it should have been, which just proves I knew nothing at all about my coworkers. If they had really been the insolent brats that I had taken them for, a battle would have raged around the espresso machine. Heads would have rolled. Macchiatos would have been spilt.

But no. Everyone was very civil.

I mean, if someone had written about me and, oh God, drawn a cartoon Rose doing say... duck-face selfies into an iPhone? I would at least call her a few terrible names and then give myself the benefit of a little pity party.

But maybe I'm more dramatic. Less mature. Too self-centered. Or I'm just too busy not going to indie music-fests, so I have time to stew in my own juices.

(Oh, balls. See what I just did there? That was me, being kind of a bitch again.)